Arie Anton van Oostveen, a former volunteer from the Netherlands, has donated €14,000 to the day care centre in Prejmer, Romania, where he participated on a Teaching project in 2010. His donation, handed over in September 2016, makes it possible to hire extra staff members, buy new educational supplies for the children and gives an additional group of children the care and support they need.

Projects Abroad Maasai Community Village Project volunteers and staff in Tanzania took up the challenge to help provide permanent housing for teachers at a local primary school in Esere Village. After overcoming many obstacles and a difficult construction process they handed over the keys at a ceremony on 29 September 2016.

Annie Doran, a medical volunteer from Ireland, recently donated seven medical aid kits to Projects Abroad partner organisations in Nanyuki, Kenya. These kits were handed over at a medical outreach session, where staff members were taught how to do CPR, correctly approach patients, assess vital signs and apply safety procedures for first aiders.

Volunteers on the Archaeology Project in Peru have recently begun excavation work at a new site in Cusco. Inkylltambo, a sector of the Archaeological Park of Sacsayhuaman, is into its third year of excavations, and Projects Abroad volunteers have been invited to take part on the dig. Volunteers began digging in mid-July after being granted a plot of land for excavation through an agreement with the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, and excavations are expected to continue through October.

Our volunteers in Ghana have been incredibly supportive of ‘Football Pitch Reading’, a new community-based project implemented in the Cape Coast region at the beginning of June. Through this initiative, volunteers teach the local children how to read at their weekly football practices.

Projects Abroad would like to announce that Greg Thomson has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer and assumed his role on 15 August 2016. Greg has succeeded Dr Peter Slowe, the company’s founder, who will remain in the company as the Executive Chair.

With over a million study hours on platforms, trails, playbacks and mist nets, Taricaya Ecological Reserve in Peru has officially identified 478 species of bird in the reserve, with the final four species being added to their list in the last three weeks of July 2016.

During July, Projects Abroad established a new International Development project in Togo. The aim of this project is to help combat social and economic issues hampering the country’s development, particularly in the field of human rights, political governance and public health.

Victor Lee, a Projects Abroad Physiotherapy volunteer, presented at the 38th National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week in the Philippines on the establishment of a community-based Rehab and Disability Centre, the first of its kind in the northern part of Cebu island.

Projects Abroad Argentina is set to welcome its first volunteers at the new Canine Therapy Project in Córdoba, this July. Fundación Jingles (The Jingles Foundation) is a privately run therapy centre, aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of its clients with the assistance of the 32 therapy dogs that live at the centre.

It's been one year since volunteers on our Disaster Relief project in Nepal began rebuilding schools in the Kathmandu valley. Since then, hundreds of volunteers have built over 60 classrooms, enabling 1500 children to return to school.

Care volunteers in Andasibe, Madagascar helped to provide a local school with clean drinking water. The volunteers built brick and cement stoves on the premises, which will be used to boil water for the next day. The tap water in the area is often unsafe to drink, and the students run the risk of suffering stomach aches and digestive problems.

What started out as a volunteering adventure has now turned into a fully-fledged career for Projects Abroad’s Roger Bruget. The Norwegian native arrived in Thailand a few years ago as a volunteer on our Diving & Marine Conservation project, and is now Conservation Project Manager at our Diving & Marine Conservation project on the island of Koh Sdach in Cambodia.

Students attending Yelebe Fana and Berhane Zare, two schools in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, will start 2016 with access to 250 new books, thanks to a donation by Projects Abroad volunteers and staff in November 2015.

During the early hours of 8 December 2015, the Projects Abroad Conservation team, along with government officials, police and Animal Defenders International (ADI), raided an informal zoo in Sandia, a mountainous region of Peru, and successfully rescued 13 animals from atrocious conditions.